Kiss My Ice

3|0

"You don't have to be sorry, Zoe." After being serious to defuse the situation, Chris couldn't resist a smile any longer. "I'm actually happy to see that you two are finally getting along. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner."

For a second I was going to ask him what he meant by his second comment. Then I remembered the conversation from the barbeque. All the boys seemed to have thought that there was something already going on between Aiden and me. At the time there wasn't, but it made sense that he was surprised it hadn't happened sooner.

I dropped my head. The boys probably thought I had been lying before.

"Right," Aiden mumbled lowly. I didn't have to look up to know that his face showed not an ounce of amusement. It made me wonder if the guys had teased him about it in the same way they had to me.

A silence fell over the three of us. The only sounds were of the hockey team chattering around us, skates and pucks gliding around the ice.

"I'm going to get back to practice." I didn't bother to look back at Chris or Aiden before I spun around on my skates to flee to the other side of the rink. I knew that I would be scolded for leaving, so I wasn't going to. But I was going to avoid as many of the team as possible, working on dribbling by myself.

I wanted nothing more than this dreaded hockey practice to be over and done with.

_-_-_

I sucked in a large breath of air, held onto it as I paced back and forth in front of the lockers. Somehow I had managed to survive the full hour on the ice with the hockey team. After Chris scolded everyone, no one tried to ask me any questions either.

It was the longest hour of my entire life.

"This is such a mess." I let out a frantic sigh. The more I thought the worse I felt. I should not have let Aiden kiss me in front of everyone. It was the wrong place and the wrong time. People aren't supposed to kiss in the middle of their practice.

I stopped my pacing the second my phone screen lit up. Someone was texting me. I leaned down to where my phone sat on the wooden bench, praying that it wasn't one of the guys. It was Lucy. Eagerly, I reached for my phone and hit dial.

"Hey, where have you been?" She answered after only one ring. "I just stopped by your house to see if you wanted to go get coffee and you weren't there."

I hesitated. My mouth hung slightly agape as my brain scrambled to think of an excuse that didn't involve the hockey team. "Mark called me into the rink for a last-minute thing." Lies.

A pang of guilt hit me knowing that I was lying to my best friend. I could really have used her advice right now, but she was as in the dark as the boys. It was late last night; I hadn't had time to call and fill her in on the many events of last night.

"Oh, well if you're almost done I can pick you up from there."

I could hear the door the locker room swing open and then footsteps. I swallowed. It wasn't likely that one of the guys would have come inside the girl's locker room... right? "Yeah, sounds fun. I'll see you in thirty minutes," I mumbled to Lucy right before I hung up.

The door banged shut and a second later, Kelsey had appeared from around the corner.

"Kelsey?" I asked, feeling relieved my paranoia was off. "You guys are still in town?"

"My dad has one last meeting with Mark Hansen tomorrow for his new sponsorship of the arena."

The new sponsorship. With everything that had happened with Aiden over the last few days, I had completely forgotten about the rink getting a new sponsor. Henry Olson was paying for a brand-new ice rink. Henry Olson must have been her dad.